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1. It has been claimed that the British love of compromise is the result of the country’s physical geography. This may or may not be true, but it is certainly true that the land and climate in Britain have a notable lack of extremes.
据称英国式的妥协的爱是由这个国家的客观地貌造成的，这么说或许对也或许不对，但是这个国家的地貌和气候显著缺乏极端性，这确属事实。
2. The image of a wet, foggy land was created two thousand years ago by the invading Romans and was perpetuated in the twentieth century by Hollywood. In fact, London gets no more rain in a year than most other major European cities, and less than some.
英国潮湿多雾的印象是两千多年前入侵的罗马人制造的，而好莱坞又使这一印象在二十世纪挥之不去。事实上，伦敦的年降雨量赶不上欧洲的绝大多数城市，比另外一些城市也少。
3. There is a saying that Britain doesn’t have a climate, it only has weather. It may not rain very much altogether, but you can never be sure of a dry day; there can be cool (even cold) days in July and some quite warm days in January.
有一种说法是英国没有气候，只有天气。 雨下得不会很大，但你也绝没有把握说一整天都会滴雨不下。七月份会有很冷的日子，而一月份某几天也会很暖和。 Image/up.gif
4. Britain has neither towering mountain ranges nor impressive large rivers, plains or forests. But this does not mean that its landscape is boring. What it lacks in grandeur it makes up for in variety. The scenery changes noticeably over quite short distances.
英国既没有极高的山脉也没有壮阔的江河、平原和森林。但这并不意味着它的景色平淡乏味。它所缺乏的壮观被多样性所填补，景致的变化仅仅仅在很短的距离之间就能显而易见。
5. This popularity is probably the result of its combination of apparently infinite cultural variety and a long history which has left intact many visible signs of its richness and drama.
伦敦为人所喜爱，这或许是由于她显著地结合了无尽的文化多样性和悠久的历史，这给她留下了许许多多完整的看得见的财富和事件。
6. In the minds of British people, the prototype of the noisy, dirty factories that symbolize the Industrial Revolution is found in the once-industrial north of England.
在英国人的意识中，标志着工业革命的吵杂且脏乱的工厂原型被发现位于英格兰北部的一次性工业地带。
7. But the achievements of these new industrial towns also induced a feeling of civic pride in their inhabitants and an energetic realism, epitomized by the cliched saying “where there’s muck there’s brass” (where there is dirt, there is money to be made).
但是这些新兴工业城市所取得的成就在他们的民众中引起了一种市民自豪感和强大的现实主义理念，浓缩成一句老生常谈就是“有污秽的地方就有金钱”。
8. Open and uninhabited countryside is never far away from its cities and towns. The typical industrial landscape and the very rural landscape interlock.
开阔且杳无人迹的乡村离城市和城镇都不远。典型的工业城市的地貌和地道的乡村景色相互交织在了一起。
9. Edinburgh, which is smaller than Glasgow, has a comparatively middle-class image (although class differences between the two cities are not really very great). It is the capital of Scotland and the seat of its parliament.
爱丁堡比格拉斯哥小，比较而言，它有一种中等阶层的印象（虽然两座城市的阶级差别不太明显）。它是苏格兰的的首府和议会中心。
10. Most of the rest of Wales is mountainous. Because of this, travel between south and north is very difficult. As a result, each part of Wales has closer contact with its neighbouring part of England than it does with other parts of Wales: the north with Liverpool, and mid-Wales with the English West Midlands.
威尔士的其他地方绝大多数是山地，因此从南到北的旅行十分困难。威尔士每个与英格兰周边相邻的地方都与与英格兰联系紧密，胜过了这些地方彼此间的联系：北边与利物浦相连，威尔士中部与英格兰的中西部地区相连。